Re: RoundUp

[J Peter Young]

Gil,   We had a marvelous green manure crop this spring which, when we couldn't get control of it in the vine row, completely shut down vine growth in early summer. It is a young vineyard and apparently very sensitive to competition. Once the green manure crop finally fell away natually, the more noxious north coast weeds began to appear because of our irrigation. In some areas we did sow a clover vine row cover crop, but it was just a competitive.   It's sad that next door, my conventional farming neighbor who uses a pre-emergent over the winter and then regularly applied RoundUp through teh growing season had much better growth and vigor with less water and a lot less fertilizer.   We had hoped to only try to keep the 18" around each vine clear, but that is turning out to be impractical and next season we are going for an 18" to 24" wide strip. The aisles will continue to have cover crop in them providing habitat.   Our biggest concern this year is getting in to the vineyard at the right points in time over  the winer to use the vinegar and the number of passes we'll have to make each season since vinegar has not effect on the roots.   Peter